Director of Product Strategy, Commercial Defense

About Code Metal

Code Metal is redefining code translation for mission-critical industries, helping defense, automotive, aerospace, and semiconductor partners move more quickly and reliably from algorithm to silicon. We are hiring a Director of Product Strategy, Commemercial Defense who will be a critical part of our Growth team and own product discovery, direction, and drive outcomes for our commercial defense customers.

The Role

This is a leadership role responsible for ensuring we are building the right capabilities, for the right defense users, in a way that can be easily adopted and scaled inside the commercial defense ecosystem. You will work directly with customers, engineers, and growth leaders to translate real mission needs and constraints into a coherent product strategy.

This is a leadership role responsible for ensuring we are building the right capabilities, for the right defense users, in a way that can be adopted and scaled across primes, Tier 1 suppliers, and defense-focused technology companies.

This role exists to produce a clear outcome:

Within 12 months, Code Metal has a disciplined, evidence-backed commercial defense product strategy that improves adoption velocity, reduces bespoke feature drift, and concentrates investment on repeatable platform leverage.

You will work directly with customers, engineers, and growth leaders to translate mission constraints and real-world adoption dynamics into coherent product bets and sequencing decisions.

Success is measured by clarity, leverage, and time-to-impact

Responsibilities:

• Own product strategy and roadmap for commercial defense product lines, grounded in customer workflows, constraints, and adoption patterns
• Lead product discovery with primes, Tier 1 suppliers, and defense-focused technology companies to identify high-value, repeatable product opportunities
• Translate customer problems into clear product bets, success metrics, and sequencing decisions

• Engage directly with commercial defense customers to understand how they evaluate, adopt, and scale new technology
• Build credibility with technical, engineering, and product stakeholders inside customer organizations
• Identify patterns across customer engagements that inform platform capabilities rather than one-off solutions

• Partner closely with Growth to inform ICPs, value propositions, and opportunity shaping
• Collaborate deeply with Engineering to frame problems, explore solution spaces, and sequence product investments
• Provide clarity and focus to small, fast-moving teams operating in complex technical environments

• Help identify where Code Metal should - and should not - invest product effort within the defense market
• Represent the voice of the commercial defense customer internally, grounding decisions in external reality rather than internal assumptions

• 5+ years of experience in product management, technical product leadership, or adjacent roles in mission-critical or highly regulated industries
• Experience working with commercial defense customers, prime contractors, or defense-focused technology companies
• Strong product discovery skills, including customer interviewing, problem framing, and synthesis
• Technical fluency and ability to partner deeply with engineers
• Comfort operating in ambiguous, early-stage environments
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills
• US Citizen required; active security clearance is a plus

• Pay depends on experience, but we strive to be at the upper end of the salary range
• Health care plan with 100% premium coverage, including medical, dental, and vision.
• 401k with 5% matching.
• Paid Time Off (Uncapped Vacation, plus Sick & Public Holidays).
• Flexible hybrid or remote work arrangement.
• Relocation assistance for qualifying employees.